Future Shock (6 page)

“Yeah, I’d like to buy five of the SG17 flexis.”

She moves to the front counter and pulls out five tiny boxes. “That’ll be $980.”

I pull the wallet Aether Corp provided out of my backpack and count out the money. There’s $1,000 in there, so I have just enough to cover it. I try to give it to the cashier, but she looks at my hand like I’m offering her a live snake.

“I’m sorry. We don’t take
cash
here.” She sounds horrified. She glances at the salesman I talked to earlier, as though looking for help.

He walks over and smiles at me. “Is there a problem?”

“No.” I shove the money back in the wallet and stuff it in my backpack. What kind of place doesn’t take cash? And how am I supposed to pay for this stuff? Aether didn’t give us credit cards, probably because there was no guarantee they’d work in the future. The way she looked at the money makes me wonder if the future has some new form of currency. “So, um, what
do
you take?”

The girl stares at me and the man frowns. I realize my question makes me look like a complete idiot, but what else can I do?

“We only accept fingerprint IDs with DNA scans,” she says slowly, like I’m stupid or something. She gestures to a smooth, black surface on the counter. “You place your hand here.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Don’t mind her. She just needs more coffee,” Adam says behind me, but they don’t look convinced.

I place my hand on the black surface. The fingerprints and DNA must link to a bank or something. Maybe that’s how Adam paid for the food earlier. Will my future self be charged for this? If so, I’m sure I’ll be understanding. After all, I’ll remember this moment. Although this seems dangerously close to connecting with my future self.

The surface under me flashes red, and I jerk my hand back. The woman frowns. “That’s odd.” She presses something on the other side of the counter, her eyebrows pinched together.

“What is it?” the salesman asks.

“There was some sort of error. I reset the scanner.” She glances up at me. “Sorry, could you try that again?”

I place my hand on the surface, and again it flashes red. Dread creeps through my gut.

“I’m sorry,” the girl says, her eyes wide. “But it says you’re not in the system.”

“What does that mean?” I ask, heart pounding. How can I not be in the system?

“I’m not sure. I’ve never seen this before. It could be a glitch or something.”

But somehow I know it’s not a glitch. It’s me.

Something is wrong with my future.

02:09

“The scanner seems to be working fine.” The salesman looks up at me, and I see suspicion in his eyes. The other customers are starting to stare.

“There must be something wrong with the software,” the girl says.

But the man isn’t convinced. I get the feeling he’ll call the cops any second now. If we aren’t in the system, he probably assumes we’re criminals or something. I have to save this, quick.

“That’s really strange.” I glance at Zoe, but she couldn’t buy anything at the fast food place either. “Adam, can you get these for us?”

“Sure.” Adam steps in front of me and places his hand on the counter. This time, no red flash. Instead it turns blue, and the salespeople stare at something behind the counter. They look at Adam, then back at their interface, then back at him.

“Dr. O’Neill!” the girl says. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize…You just look so young in person.”

The man is all smiles now. “I get it. This was a test, right?” He gives a little laugh. “You definitely had me convinced you didn’t know how the flexis worked!”

“Um, yeah.” Adam glances at me with wide eyes, but I don’t have an answer for him. All I can think of is the red flash and the woman’s words:
not in the system
.

“Please accept our apologies and let us know if you need anything else,” the salesman says. “This was completely our fault. Our system must be acting up, but we’ll have it checked out immediately. This is all free of charge for your trouble.”

“I’m so sorry,” the girl repeats. She shoves the boxes in a bag and hands it to Adam, like it’s an offering. “And…thank you. For everything. My grandmother…”

“That’s enough, Patricia,” the salesman says. Patricia bows her head.

“Um, no problem,” Adam says. “Thanks.”

We hurry out of there before they can realize something is wrong. Adam’s fingerprints must have connected to his future self’s profile. The salespeople treated him like he was a celebrity or something—and what was all that about the girl’s grandmother?

We run into Chris and Trent outside—or rather, they crash into us. Before I can ask why or tell them what happened to us, Chris says, “This way. Hurry!”

He rushes past the stores and around the back, into an area behind the shopping center where deliveries are probably dropped off. I don’t know where we’re going or why we’re running, but I’m happy to get away from Smartgear and out of sight.

Chris stops between two huge trucks that look similar to the ones in our time except they don’t have a spot for drivers to sit. He and Trent check to make sure no one is following us. “Okay,” he says. “There’s some crazy shit going on here. The stores won’t take cash, and when they scanned us, we weren’t in the system.”

“The same thing happened to us,” I say.

That means four of us aren’t in the system. Everyone is missing except Adam. The empty research facility was just the beginning of our problems. It must all be connected.

“Seriously?” Chris runs a hand over his shaved head. “How can we all not be in the system?”

“It might be related to whatever happened to Aether Corporation,” Adam says, echoing my own thoughts.

“Maybe,” Chris says. “All I know is, we couldn’t buy anything. But Trent picked something up anyway.”

“Check this out.” Trent pulls something that looks like a pen from his coat. “It’s like a laser that heals you. Awesome, right?”

“Wait, did you
steal
that?” Adam asks.

Trent shrugs and lights up a cigarette. “They can have it back in twenty-four hours.”

Chris narrows his eyes at Adam’s bag. “How’d you get
your
stuff?”

I hesitate, but they’ll find out the truth soon enough. “Adam was in the system.”

“What?” Chris takes a step toward Adam. “Is there something you’re not telling us, smart guy?”

“No! I have no idea why I’m in the system and you’re not.”

“I think you’re lying. I think you know
exactly
what’s going on.” He shoves Adam in the chest, knocking him back into the side of the truck.

Trent throws his cigarette on the ground and moves forward to join in. “Did you know we’d be going thirty years in the future instead of ten?”

I’m getting really tired of these assholes. I step in front of Chris and Trent. “Leave him alone. He doesn’t know anything.”

“How do
you
know that?” Chris asks. “You don’t know anything about him!”

“I know he’s not a thief like you two.” I clench my fists, ready to fight them both. All the pent-up frustration from the last few hours bubbles to the surface, and my muscles ache to unleash it on these two. It’s not their fault everything is going wrong, but they’re not helping things either.

“Oh my God, stop fighting!” Zoe huddles against the truck, tugging her jacket around herself. Her eyes are wide and fearful. A memory rises up from when I was a kid, cowering under a table and scared out of my mind while my parents fought. I’m disgusted with myself as I see Zoe looking at me now with the same fear. I drop my hands and take a step back.

“She’s right,” Adam says at my side. “We need to work together.”

“Work together?” Trent snickers. “That’s hilarious.”

Chris points a finger at Adam. “You’re lucky your girlfriend is here to protect you. This time.”

My temper flares up again. “He’s not my—”

“Yeah, whatever.” Chris crosses his arms and glares at us. “So what’s your plan?”

No one answers. The question is too big. Nothing’s gone right since we arrived in the future. Hell, we’re not even in the right time period.

Maybe something bad happened to us in the thirty years between our time and now. Aether told us not to look into our futures because it could send us into shock and cause brain damage—but what if they’re wrong?

Or what if that’s all a lie, and they don’t want us to do it because we’ll discover what’s
actually
going on?

I have to know why I’m not in the system. Even if it damages my brain, I need to know my fate.

“We need to find out what happened to us,” I say.

“What?” Zoe asks. “But we’re not supposed to look into our futures.”

“Do we have any other choice?”

“Yeah,” Chris says. “We figure out how this stuff works and go home. That’s what we came to do.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know about you guys, but I signed up for this ‘research project’ to make sure I
have
a future. Something obviously went wrong in the last thirty years. I’m going to find out what happened and fix it.”

“How do we do that?” Trent asks.

I’m not sure. But Adam answers for me. “We can use the stuff we bought to search for ourselves. We’ll try to link up with our profiles. Our future selves must have Facebook or whatever the equivalent is now, right? Or a website, something we can use.”

“What if we can’t find anything?” asks Zoe.

“We look for other people we know. Friends, family. Or for Aether Corporation. Try to find out what happened to them.”

While Chris stares off into space with a grim look on his face, Trent flicks his lighter on and off. “What about paradoxes and all that crap?” Trent asks.

“We won’t actually interact with our future selves,” Adam says. “We’ll just look them up. That’s it. We should be okay.”

Zoe chews on the edge of her black nails. “I don’t know…”

“Screw it. I’m in,” Trent says. “We can look ourselves up
and
figure out how the technology works at the same time.”

“But won’t we go into shock or whatever?” Zoe asks.

“Maybe,” I say. “But that’s a risk I’m willing to take. I have a gut feeling something is very wrong in this future.”

“This is a bad idea,” Chris says, shaking his head. “If we do this, we can’t let Aether know that we looked ourselves up.”

“None of us will tell them.” I glance at the others, and they all nod.

Adam opens the bag and passes out the flexis we bought, while briefly explaining to Trent and Chris how they work. We spread out between the two trucks. I sit against a huge tire and hold the flexi in my fingers, feeling the thin plastic membrane. The others all start to apply them, but I still hesitate. I don’t want this thing poking around in my brain, but if it’s the only way…

I fit it on my face, around my eye and up onto my forehead. There’s a bit of tightness as it sticks to my skin, like it has tiny invisible suckers on it, and then I don’t feel it at all. I remove my hand and it stays there, attached to my face.

Immediately, an image pops up in front of me, making me flinch. The message lies on top of my normal vision, but I have no trouble seeing the truck in front of me either. It has two options:
Sync
or
Create Profile
.

I might as well try syncing to see if it can find a profile for me. “How do I select something?”

“Just picture yourself touching it,” Adam says. “It’s all very intuitive.”

I lift my hand to touch the button and it lights up. For a moment it just says
Syncing…
but then I get the message
No profile found. Create one?

“I’m not in this system either.” I click on the
Yes
button. This time I do it mentally, without my hand.

“Nope, me neither,” Trent says.

“This shit is messed up,” Chris says, but I hear awe in his voice too.

When it asks for my name, I create a fake one, and the letters appear as soon as I visualize them in the box. A minute later I have a fake profile connected to my brain waves and DNA, and all sorts of icons crowd my vision. I don’t know what I’m doing and I somehow select one of them with a penguin on it.

Colors and images rush toward me and I try to shrink back. A second later they resolve into a game, where tiny cartoon penguins with boxing gloves slide around on ice and try to hit each other. I hear music and strange little chirping sounds coming from the penguins, and I’m hit with the smell of frost and the feel of cold wind on my face. Behind the game, I can still see the faint image of the truck, but my body is telling me I’m in the snow with the penguins.

I start to panic as the penguins move faster, the noises and colors and smells suffocating me. I can’t figure out how to get out of this program. I close my eyes, but it doesn’t go away. And when I turn my head, the sound and the images follow, because they’re
in
my head. I can’t get them out and I can’t make it stop.

I rip the flexi off like a Band-Aid and feel something like a tiny electric shock in my brain. The images and sounds disappear immediately, but the feel of being in the snow takes longer to go away. Thank God it’s over. I lean back against the tire, breathing heavily. No way in hell am I using that thing ever again.

Adam moves to sit beside me. “You okay?” he asks, too softly for the others to hear. They’re all too involved in whatever they’re seeing and hearing anyway.

“Yeah.” I rub my face, trying to clear my vision. Cold sweat drips down my forehead. “Fine.”

“It’s a little overwhelming at first. But you’ll get used to it.”

I stay silent. Everyone else seems to have no problem using their flexis. Zoe has hers set to look like purple butterflies fluttering across her temple; Trent has a big, yellow lightning bolt on his; and Chris has a barbed-wire design that matches a tat on his arm. Adam’s kept his flexi clear, but it’s obvious he’s an expert with it already. I don’t want to admit that I’m the only one who can’t figure the stupid thing out.

I’ve never been good with computers. Growing up, we never had one—couldn’t afford one, I guess. Once I went into foster care I mostly used the computers at school or the library. If I was really lucky, my foster home would have one, but it was usually shared between all the kids, so I never got to use it for long. I didn’t even have a cell phone until a few months ago. Many foster parents don’t bother getting them for their temporary kids, but the Robertsons insisted we each have one, even if they’re ancient models. Katie had to show me how to use it.

“Just try it again,” Adam says. He’s really persistent, but he doesn’t seem to be judging me. “Take it slow this time so you can get used to it.”

I stretch the flexi between my fingers, seeing how long it can get. I want to throw it into the road and never use it again, but Adam’s watching me, and I don’t want him to think I can’t do it.

“Fine.” I smooth the flexi back on my face and it connects to my new profile. This time I brace myself for the experience, and it’s a little less jarring. I know more of what to expect now and I take it slower, keeping Adam’s words in mind. For a few minutes, I learn how to control the device, and it starts to make a lot more sense. It really is intuitive once you have some idea what you’re doing. As long as I don’t go into any more games, I should be okay.

If I’m going to blend in I probably need a flexi design too. I scroll through the options until I find a basic design of five tiny, black stars scattered around the eye. Perfect—not too in-your-face, and it matches the star tattoos on my left arm.

Once that’s done, I call up an Internet search. It’s really strange how I can see both the search box and the truck at once, but I’m starting to like that. It means I can keep an eye on the others while doing this. I enter my name, and millions of hits pop up for different people named
Elena Martinez
. I had no idea my name was so common. I scroll through them, but there’s too much info, and none of the hits seem to be me.

I don’t have anyone else to search for. No real family, no friends I’m close enough to visit in the future. I could look for Papá, but the thought makes me want to throw up. Besides, if he’s still alive, he’ll be in prison, serving out his life sentence. No help there.

Instead, I search for Aether Corp. I find their website immediately. They’re still around and have an office in downtown LA. So why was the research facility here in the desert abandoned?

“I’m not finding anything,” I say. “There are too many hits for people with my name.”

“Yeah, me too,” Trent says. “This is impossible.”

Zoe’s head snaps up. “I think I found my sister! She has a website or a profile or whatever they’re called now.”